Dr. Herbert Benson’s Relaxation Response

Learn to counteract the physiological effects of stress.

THE BASICS

The term "Relaxation Response" was coined by Dr. Herbert Benson, professor, author, cardiologist, and founder of Harvard’s Mind/Body Medical Institute. The response is defined as your personal ability to encourage your body to release chemicals and brain signals that make your muscles and organs slow down and increase blood flow to the brain.

In his book, The Relaxation Response, Dr. Benson describes the scientific benefits of relaxation, explaining that regular practice of the Relaxation Response can be an effective treatment for a wide range of stress-related disorders.

Benson can be largely credited for demystifying meditation and helping to bring it into the mainstream, by renaming meditation the “Relaxation Response.” His studies in the 1960s and 1970s were able to show that meditation promotes better health, especially in individuals with hypertension. People who meditate regularly enjoy lower stress levels, increased wellbeing, and even were able to reduce their blood pressure levels and resting heart rate.

The Relaxation Response is essentially the opposite reaction to the “fight or flight” response. According to Dr. Benson, using the Relaxation Response is beneficial, as it counteracts the physiological effects of stress and the fight or flight response.

The fight-or-flight stress response occurs naturally when we perceive that we are under excessive pressure, and it is designed to protect us from bodily harm. Our sympathetic nervous system becomes immediately engaged in creating a number of physiological changes, including increased metabolism, blood pressure, heart and breathing rate, dilation of pupils, constriction of our blood vessels, all of which work to enable us to fight or flee from a stressful or dangerous situation.

It is common for individuals experiencing the fight-or-flight response to describe uncomfortable physiological changes like muscle tension, headache, upset stomach, racing heartbeat, and shallow breathing. The fight-or-flight response can become harmful when elicited frequently. When high levels of stress hormones are secreted often, they can contribute to a number of stress-related medical conditions such as cardiovascular disease, GI diseases, adrenal fatigue, and more.

The Relaxation Response is a helpful way to turn off the fight-or-flight response and bring the body back to pre-stress levels. Dr. Benson describes the Relaxation Response as a physical state of deep relaxation which engages the other part of our nervous system—the parasympathetic nervous system. Research has shown that regular use of the Relaxation Response can help any health problem that is caused or exacerbated by chronic stress such as fibromyalgia, gastrointestinal ailments, insomnia, hypertension, anxiety disorders, and others.

There are many methods to elicit the Relaxation Response including visualization, progressive muscle relaxation, energy healing, acupuncture, massage, breathing techniques, prayer, meditation, tai chi, qi gong, and yoga. True relaxation can also be achieved by removing yourself from everyday thought and by choosing a word, sound, phrase, prayer, or by focusing on your breathing.

According to Dr. Benson, one of the most valuable things we can do in life is to learn deep relaxation — making an effort to spend some time every day quieting our minds to create inner peace and better health. This is also true with healing. During the energy healing process, the patient is able to relax, quiet their mind, and experience calming effects while the healer does his or her work. Energy healing patients have experienced profound results, not unlike the results seen in Dr. Benson’s studies.

Learning the Relaxation Response is a great skill that can help us to be better equipped to deal with life's unexpected stressors, heal ourselves, and achieve better health.

The best time to practice the Relaxation Response is first thing in the morning for 10 to 20 minutes. Practicing just once or twice daily can be enough to counteract the stress response and bring about deep relaxation and inner peace.

Breathe through your nose. Become aware of your breathing. As you breathe out, say the word "one"* silently to yourself. For example, breathe in, and then out, and say "one"*, in and out, and repeat "one."* Breathe easily and naturally.

Continue for 10 to 20 minutes. You may open your eyes to check the time, but do not use an alarm. When you finish, sit quietly for several minutes, at first with your eyes closed and later with your eyes opened. Do not stand up for a few minutes.

Do not worry about whether you are successful in achieving a deep level of relaxation. Maintain a passive attitude and permit relaxation to occur at its own pace. When distracting thoughts occur, try to ignore them by not dwelling upon them and return to repeating "one."*

With practice, the response should come with little effort. Practice the technique once or twice daily, but not within two hours after any meal, since the digestive processes seem to interfere with the elicitation of the Relaxation Response.

*Choose any soothing, mellifluous sounding word, preferably with no meaning or association, to avoid stimulation of unnecessary thoughts.

I have noticed that people involuntarily elicit something similar to the relaxation response. Have you ever noticed that sometimes your mind goes blank and you gaze into the distance or at some object for 5-10 seconds? That's what I am curious about. Is that our body's own way of eliciting the relaxation response?

the information given is sufficient for all but i am pursuing a research on this since two years and would like to have little insight and help in learning more about relaxation. Could you please get back to me.

An impressive share! I have just forwarded this onto a co-worker who has been doing a little homework on this. And he in fact ordered me lunch due to the fact that I discovered it for him... lol. So allow me to reword this.... Thanks for the meal!! But yeah, thanks for spending some time to discuss this subject here on your web site.

New explanation of resting and procedure for relaxation which challenges Benson's hypothesis.

Here is a new explanation of resting and a new procedure for relaxation training that disagrees totally with Benson's position. It It is derived from the work of the distinguished affective and behavioral neuroscientist Dr. Kent Berridge of the University of Michigan, who has vetted and endorsed my argument. The procedure that follows in the linked little book below (pp. 24, 28, 40-42), is novel, short, succinct, simple and easily testable.

The book is written in two parts, for a lay and professional audience, and contains links to articles published in professional journals by this author that further elaborate my position. Since the procedure is simple and innocuous, you may prove its efficacy to yourself through personal trial quite easily.

Below is my argument in a nutshell:

Individuals who engage in tasks in which they perceive a consistent and high degree of present and anticipated novel and positive outcomes or ‘meaning’ (e.g. sporting events, creative activity, doing productive work) commonly report a feeling of high alertness and arousal that may be construed to be due to the activation of mid-brain dopamine systems. However, a significant subset of these individuals also report a feeling of pleasure that is characteristic of opioid release, but these reports occur only in non-stressed situations when the musculature is relaxed. Since relaxation engages opioid systems in the brain, and because opioid and dopamine systems stimulate each other, the resulting blissful states require the simultaneous engagement of resting protocols and meaningful cognitive states, behaviors that are very easily achieved. In this way, which engages both resting protocols and an active sense of meaning, both dopamine and opioid release can be increased in the brain, and provide a level of deep rest that can effectively mitigate stress and anxiety.

the book can be found on open source scribd site.

it is free, and is titled The Book of Rest: The Odd Psychology of doing nothing.

Hello Everyone,
I am concerned that some of the 7 ways Dr Benson said could elicit the RR are not mentioned in this article or in comments... So as an Autogenic Therapist (AT) working in the UK, where AT is on offer in the National Health Service since the 1960s, I'm writing to mention these. Amongst those left out are Autogenic Training, Sentic Cycles, and Transcendental Meditation. In the 1990s the Benson-Henry institute did research on AT. Then Mindfulness came along. Mindfulness is not for everyone, and I do have clients who can't do it, but who can easily take up AT. So no matter what, pick the method that works for you and keep practising!
Ruth

It is my understanding that Benson's studies used the TM model of meditation as a template, and demystified it (and demonetized it) for the layman. You might say that Benson studied the mechanics of TM, verified its scientific basis, and offered it up to the world, in generic form.
I was initiated into TM practice in 1970, and when Benson's book "The Relaxation Response" came out, I used his method, and found the result to be identical to TM.
To this day, TM claims that its method is unique and special, but it is not. That is a marketing gimmick. The method is valid, but the TM business model has always been suspect, in my opinion. By whatever name, this form of meditation "works."
Benson validated its effects through objective study, and those who practice it, generally report its benefits to be the same as TM.

Clearly in the Relaxation Response (1974) Dr Benson recommends Autogenic Training as a way to induce the Relaxation Response and his work in the 1990s included this approach. When I spoke with Dr B in 2012, we talked about how and why his work had shifted to Mindfulness, and when he thought the 'window of opportunity' for Autogenics would open more widely. I enjoyed meeting him and being in the audience when he worked with all of us using his Respiratory One method.